Icahn files suit over Tropicana Las Vegas name use, says it should pay royalties

Icahn files suit over Tropicana Las Vegas name use

LAS VEGAS — Billionaire investor Carl Icahn is suing the Tropicana Las Vegas hotel-casino in hopes of forcing it to pay royalties for using its 52-year-old name.

Icahn-owned Tropicana Entertainment Inc. filed suit last week in U.S. bankruptcy court in Delaware.

Icahn’s company is now separate from the Las Vegas hotel. It says the Las Vegas Strip resort is using the name and other trademarks for free.

“For more than 30 years, the (Tropicana Entertainment and Tropicana Las Vegas) debtors represented to the world that the Tropicana trademarks were owned by (Tropicana Entertainment),” Icahn’s company said in the suit. “Among other things, billions of dollars of acquisitions, sales and loans were made based upon those representations.”

Tropicana Entertainment LLC went bankrupt in 2008. The resort was spun off to investors. Icahn bought the rest of the company, which is now based in Las Vegas under the slightly different name.

During the bankruptcy case, Icahn’s company proposed the Las Vegas resort pay $10 million to use the name for five years.

Hotel officials say they shouldn’t have to pay to use the name.

“At all times it was understood and agreed by Tropicana Las Vegas and each person or entity owning Tropicana Las Vegas that, despite changes in ownership, Tropicana Las Vegas would continue to have the right to the use of its own name,” the hotel said in a court filing this summer.

Both sides have traded arguments over the name since last year, when the hotel, now controlled by Onex Corp. and hotel executive Alex Yemenidjian, sued last year in Las Vegas over the issue.

A Clark County District Court judge this summer ruled that the bankruptcy court in Delaware needed to decide the issue.

Information from: Las Vegas Sun, www.lasvegassun.com